Neil Verhagen wants Paul Miller Racing to chase a…

Each of the past two seasons has seen Paul Miller Racing win the endurance crown, including 2024 with Neil Verhagen. And heading into this year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, the third of five endurance rounds, Verhagen and co-driver Connor de Phillippi have the team at the top once more.

Regarding the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, however, the 25-year-old Connecticut native and De Phillippi, who share the #1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, sits second in the GTD Pro class, 18 points behind Nicky Catburg and Tommy Milner of Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports.

“Notoriously over the past couple of years, Paul Miller Racing has always been very competitive in the Endurance Cup,” Verhagen said. “It’s something that we always seem to have a good strategy to maximize the points. I think it's kind of a shift in the middle of the race.

“If we see that we don't have maybe the ultimate pace to go and win the race, then, we shift the focus and we try to just grab as many points inside the race as possible. I think we're one of the few teams that actually do shift the focus and try and grab as many points as possible at the checkpoints.

“This year for sure the goal, and especially with our championship standings at this point is to focus on the actual championship that we're still trying to still win. The past two years, Paul Miller Racing has been Endurance Cup champions. So, obviously, you know, we know what to do and how to win an Endurance Cup championship. But we're trying to show that we're not just Endurance Cup champions, and that we have the material and the means to go and win an actual IMSA championship.”

#1 Paul Miller Racing: Neil Verhagen, Connor De Phillippi, #65 Ford Racing: Christopher Mies, Frederic Vervisch, #77 AO Racing: Nick Tandy, Harry King (Photo by: Art Fleischmann)

Verhagen, a two-time race winner in IMSA, will be hoping to improve on his performance at Watkins Glen International. In two previous starts at the 11-turn, 3.4-mile natural terrain road course, he only has a best finish of seventh.

“The first thing that we need to work on is improving the Watkins Glen result, because P7 is, as the best result there, is unideal,” Verhagen said.

“I think last year the team executed a great job, unfortunately. I think it was with the last hour to go, for us at least on the #1 car, we had a minimum tire pressure issue that forced us to do a drive-through at the just in the last stages of the race. So that took a double podium position away for the team.

“So obviously, for Connor and myself, it’s going to try and be executing a very clean race and obviously trying to repeat what the team was able to do with Max (Hesse) and Dan (Harper) last year.”

Verhagen also fully understands the talent of his rivals at Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, who took the full season title last year with Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims.

“Battling with Nicky and the No. 4 crew, obviously we've been battling all year, and they know how to win championships here in IMSA. They’re the defending team champion. The #3 car won the championship last year, but you know, obviously the team in general knows how to win too.”